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D&D 5E 5e's underwhelming releases

Retreater

Legend
"Just a quick formatting note. You're hitting return/enter every 10-12 words or so for some reason. The forum has its own word wrap ability. You don't need to do that - you just end up with that weird column of words. You can trust the forum to wrap text for you. Just hit return when you want a new paragraph. It's a WYSIWYG editor - What You See Is What You You Get."
I'm having an awful time that my text is being obscured by the toolbar for the emoticons and that the text is going on beyond the pane of the text window. So the only way I can see what I'm writing when I start a new thread is to do the awkward line breaks. I'm having this problem in both IE and Chrome. Apologies. (It doesn't occur in my Quick Reply boxes, however.)
Concerning judging the system too harshly too soon... Yes, I am aware that it's soon to judge 5e based only on what has been released so far. But this is a very weak launch lineup, in my opinion. I don't know how Kobold Press's material got past quality control, and it looks badly on the rest of the edition's offerings if WotC will just slap them on the back and say "good enough effort there, guys."
The maps are terrible, the storyline is incomprehensible, the plot is baroque and needlessly complex, the encounters are poorly designed. The book's binding is falling apart, the print quality of the maps is muddled and featureless.
As D&D fans, we have little content to look forward to. In previous editions we've had adventure paths, setting books. Now there's nothing official ... some third party stuff that (if it's like the Kobold stuff) is better off ignored.
 

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Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
You know what's funny is the playtest adventures were, on average, pretty darn good. I wish they'd come out with an official conversion from Next to 5e for those three adventures.
 

ren1999

First Post
I agree with the OP for the most part. The Player's Handbook is good because it accommodates most of the play styles and systems that all the play-testers wanted and the most important part is the game numbers are manageable and combat is quick leaving players to role-play more.

For this reason, the Monster Manual is also good. But there are not enough monsters and not enough interesting reactions. Easily solved by bringing in open game third party groups such as Paizo to join Kobold.

Mentioning that other RPG with the beautifully published adventures, its system is not really playable and requires a lot of house rules. We need unity here.

The DMG material is o.k. but it is unfinished. I was expecting conversion rules so that I can use all my old modules and 3rd party adventures. I'm still expecting that.

I would also like to have an official spell list spreadsheet with spell summaries.

How about a similar spreadsheet for character design? Character features are very hard to read and memorize.

Need 5E digital tools? Use this free.
http://dnd5.weebly.com

This is my advice. Wizards should invite Paizo to join the 5E party.
 



EroGaki

First Post
I know I'll be boo'd off the stage, but I'll just say it: I'm hoping for more player content to be released. Not the obvious bloat from 3.5, mind you. But as a player, I like more options and more ways to customize my characters. If WotC only focuses on AP's and monster manuals, I think they'll end up losing a good deal of money from those of us who are strictly players.
 

Nebulous

Legend
HotDQ is really really bad.

I bought it, read over it, something about it really irked me and i'm not even sure what, and i ended up running Lost Mine, and THAT i think is a classic D&D adventure, way better than i thought it would be. I do think they need stellar support from 3rd parties with the OGL though.
 

painted_klown

First Post
As a noob who is about to DM for a group of noob players, I want to see quality 5E modules. I have talked to some of the players individually, and that seems to be the general consensus among them as well.

They all seem (so far) to be happy with the choices available to them, so I don't feel there's an immediate need for supplements to the PHB, just some quality adventure modules to run.

Initially, I had planned to run the starter box (with pre-gen characters), then have everyone roll up their characters and run through HotDQ and TRoT. After reading so much negative about HotDQ, I am really starting to think that this may not be the best way to go.

Perhaps the commercial versions of Murder in Baldur's Gate and Legacy of the Crystal Shard would suit us better, but I am not 100% sure these have been completely updated to play with 5E with no conversion needed on my part.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
I bought it, read over it, something about it really irked me and i'm not even sure what, and i ended up running Lost Mine, and THAT i think is a classic D&D adventure, way better than i thought it would be. I do think they need stellar support from 3rd parties with the OGL though.

Lost mines is quite good IMHO.
 

machineelf

Explorer
Perhaps the commercial versions of Murder in Baldur's Gate and Legacy of the Crystal Shard would suit us better, but I am not 100% sure these have been completely updated to play with 5E with no conversion needed on my part.

I started my group with Legacy of the Crystal Shard, and although it was during the playtest stage, I still think it's a great adventure for the official 5E and should be very easy to use. It's not perfect, and I did find a few things I would have liked different (more dungeons, a few plot gaps), but overall it's a great, sandbox adventure. It just required the DM to read through the whole thing a few times. Also, make a calendar of events that are supposed to happen. I can send you mine if you like. It helps. (I went ahead and just posted the calendars below in case you run LoTCS.)

But I'd still prefer LMoP to introduce a group to. It's also a great adventure.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-n4W_K6tfZ3bHVYWUFsTUhxOEk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-n4W_K6tfZ3azhHdWNRdi1FQ3c/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-n4W_K6tfZ3T29KREtsY0xYWGs/view?usp=sharing
 
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